Yunnan Kitchen’s Raw-Green-Tomato Salad

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Travis Post serves this salad as an occasional special at Yunnan Kitchen, where the chef plays up the fruit’s slightly bitter flavor and crunchy texture with a piquant garlic-poppy-seed dressing. The result is cool and refreshing, full of bright citrusy notes, and, next to dredging in cornmeal and frying in oil, the best thing to ever happen to a not-ready-for-prime-time tomato.

Instructions

In a small sauté pan, add the garlic cloves and cook over medium heat
until lightly charred, about five minutes. Add the chile and continue to
cook, pressing the chile pieces into the pan so that they blister
slightly, for about two minutes. Remove garlic and chile from pan and
let cool. With a mortar and pestle, grind the poppy seeds and the
coriander seeds. When the garlic has cooled, remove the skins. (1) Add
the garlic, chile pieces, cilantro stems, and a pinch of salt to the
mortar with the poppy seeds and coriander seeds, and grind into a coarse
paste. (2) Slice the tomatoes in half and then into half-moons about
1/3-inch thick. (3) Toss the tomato slices with a large spoonful of the
spice paste. Add the rice vinegar, and adjust seasoning by adding more
spice paste and salt to taste.